Abstract:
Even as a Taiwan-based Buddhist organization is spending millions of dollars to build a 10-story-high Buddha statue in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond, other Taiwanese organizations are spending many more millions to develop methods of producing tiny bits of stuff on a scale of only nanometers--billionths of a meter. At that scale, various types of matter exhibit novel characteristics applicable to the creation of a vast array of new materials with countless applications. Among them are the creation of more powerful computer chips and revolutionary drugs and medical techniques.